Familiarity
by The Bud
Summary: The furure of Close to Me. That way, you have to guess and perhaps write what happened to lead to this. Visit our sponsers.


I won't drop the ball on informing you that I don't own this.

Familiarity

He's not the type of man that you know is coming, nor that he's even there watching you, unless, that is of course, he wants you to. He slips though the Canadian woods effortlessly, as easily as he would the swamps of the bayou. He almost looks as though he belongs here, not as one of the human populace, but as an animal. His senses bring him a whiff, the barest of traces of a woman doing laundry, her sensual musk being slightly overpowered by the strong laundry powder. He's been gone most of the day hunting for the next night's dinner, as he smells tonight's cooking slowly in the old wood-burning stove. It will go well with the beer that he bottled earlier that week. The perfume from the cooking carrots from her garden mixes with the aroma of the bread baking. The buzz from the generator completes this perfect scene as bees and bird's dart back and forth among the clearing to the cabin.

He watches her hang the white flannel sheets to dry in the late day sun, a little late, but perhaps she means for the night air to lend it's heady scent to the fabric and later the bedroom tomorrow. It wasn't easy to convince her to this life, but she said she'd follow him anywhere. He was going to leave regardless if she came or not, and the thought of leaving her tore him to the soul. He had to get away from Scott, and she knew this, bluntly, she had to get out of there too. After the things that happened with him, with his mistress, she had to get away. That was three years ago. His mistress is now his wife, she now belonged to the man watching her, and nothing had ever felt so right.

He watches as she turns around, her hair looking like fire incarnate about her face as she turns, revealing her swollen belly and something akin to pride fills his heart. Tomorrow, he has to go back into town to work and leave her here, something he desperately hates to do, but with his child on the way, he hasn't much choice.

The smoke from the chimney is warm and inviting as hunger pangs start to gnaw at his belly as the food's smell reaches him. Her every sway catches his rapt attention as he closes the distance to his home, only stopping briefly to check his mailbox. Because they live this far out, it only comes once a week, and she leaves it for him. The phone rings while he stands, something that so rarely happens that the wildlife becomes completely silent. He probably wouldn't even had one installed if it weren't for her, she might need him sometimes when she's alone, even though she could just telepathically call him. Employers don't let you go home on mental phone calls, but he still hates those things. Sometimes, it's a way for the past to catch you.

He enters the house and knows from her ashen face, this wasn't a good call. He knows instantly what it must be telepathy wasn't even a factor. " What did they want?" He growls as he throws the mail on the table next to the door. He built that table; he knows it can handle a little abuse.

"Scott says that they need you." She tells me as she sits down at our small dinner table. Her small hand pressed against her face in a worried manner. "Whatever happened, it already…She went quickly."

"What? Who?" He gasps hard as he fears the answer. Jean must be trying to keep him from feeling too much, a good thing for a man with a feral temper as his.

She swallows hard as she tries to work past the tears and Logan just knows. Storm must have put up a good fight, she always does, but who could be strong enough to take down Orroro?

"I can't leave you, Jean. Tell him no. I miss work, we can't pay for the things that baby is going to need." He swallows down his own sorrow over Storm's loss, but he did tell Scott that after what he did to Jean, he wasn't ever going back. "Tell him I'm sorry."

"They're in town now." She looks at him almost scared. "It's Emma, she's gone crazy. They need somebody that can take her down. She came here looking for us."

"She has no business looking for us." Logan fumes as he pulls his old uniform from the hall closet. The deer roasting in the oven with the new potatoes is quickly forgotten. "Jean, I won't let her find us. I won't let him find us, go into the bunker and wait for me to come back."

He remembers the damage inflicted on her by Scott. They had found out that when Jean and the Professor had excised Apocalypse from Scott, a seed of him remained, and a part of Charles' own psyche was left behind. It was a part on Onslaught that never left, the two merged and Scott started to think of himself as Eric the Red. He had an inhibiter tailored to her, and beat her nearly to death several times while she was helpless. After Logan managed to break the control to the inhibiter, and Jean and Emma managed to suppress the entity. Emma must have absorbed some of it because six months ago, she became increasingly unstable, Scott too, and the X-Men disbanded in response. Slowly, one X-Man after another has been targeted, some dying horribly, others just robbed of their minds. Jean had tried to contact surviving members, but none of them wanted to be pulled into what were the X-Men again. Nor did they particularly want to face what Emma and Scott became.

They know she's coming after them.

"She might already know." She says as she looks at me with those crystalline green eyes. "Logan, that is not Emma, and that is not Scott. Whatever it is, it has hold over them, they can't be held wholly for they're actions."

"She killed Storm." He tells her, bringing the cedar smelling spandex and leather costume over his head for the first time in years. "That's enough for me." He kisses her lips deeply for what could be the last time. "Get in the bunker. They shouldn't be able to get you there. It's lined with that stuff I found on Avalon."

"Logan?" She begins to plead for him to not go, to stay safe, mostly, not to leave her alone and let her come along.

"Jean, If she could have pin pointed you, she would have attacked you by now. I'm not risking your, nor my child's safety. Now get in the bunker." He looks at her lovingly as he strokes her long, rich hair. "I'll be back, in one way or another."

"How do we know that you aren't what they want?" She asks him as she places her worried head on his chest, inhaling his familiar scent, comforting herself this one last time.

"We don't. But it's what they're gonna get."


End file.
